This invention relates to a cutter for a shaper and, more particularly, to a cutter for cutting irregular shapes such as the teeth of a gear. Customarily, such cutters include a conical body with a plurality of teeth equally spaced angularly around the periphery of the body. The ends, sides and roots of the teeth are inclined radially inwardly from the face of the body so that the edges of the teeth constitute the cutting edges of the cutter. Frequently, the cutter is surface coated as with a thin film of titanium nitride.
When the cutting edges of such a tool become dull, they are resharpened by grinding the face of the tool and hence the faces of the teeth. Such grinding presents a number of difficulties. For one thing, because the ends, sides and roots of the teeth are inclined, the grinding changes the relationship between the cutter and the workpiece and the original set-up of the cutter and the work must be adjusted to compensate for this. Also, it is difficult to achieve a high quality of sharpening as compared with the sharpening performed at the point of manufacture. In addition, where the cutter is coated, the cutting edges and surfaces are no longer coated after grinding.